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NSCDA-OH is pleased to present:

A Day in
the Life: As the Betts Family lived in the mid-19th Century

at
the Betts House:April 1-June 30, 2017

In addition to the
praised exhibit last year, the exhibit will feature brand new materials and
programs showing how people entertained themselves in the mid nineteenth
century. Each Saturday will feature a different event in correlation to the exhibit!

Permanent Exhibit:History at Home: The Story of the Betts Family, the West End, and Cincinnati, explains how the once-country home of the Betts family is now nestled among other 19th and 20th century dwellings in the Betts Longworth Historic District, just a few blocks from busy downtown Cincinnati. History at Home was made possible through a generous anonymous donation.

Recent Past Exhibits:

Traveling Through Time and Color: Regenerated Images of History & Landscape

October 1, 2016 - November 30, 2016The Betts House is pleased to host a new exhibit, Traveling Through Time and Color: Regenerated Images of History & Landscapes. In response to this year’s FotoFocus theme, Photography, the Undocument, the exhibit offers altered images that lift the audience to imaginative views of real places. The exhibit showcases the fantasized images produced by photographers David Parks, a retired engineer, and Erce Gokhan, an architect trained in his native home of Turkey. Each piece presents unique truth to the audience through an enhanced, new vision of Cincinnati

Join us for an Architectural Photography Walking Tour October 22 at 1PM. The exhibit will be on display until November 30, 2016.

Construction for Kids: Build, Play & Learn
The Betts House, Ohio’s oldest brick home, built in 1804, is proud to host a brand new exhibit, Construction for Kids: Build, Play & Learn. The exhibit offers fun activities where children can play with construction tools, objects and materials. The exhibit, has been designed by the Betts House especially to expose children to real life building concepts. Each of the play ten stations showcase a different set of tools, materials, safety equipment or architectural concepts.

Construction for Kids: Build, Play & Learn encourages children to interact with each module, either on their own or by collaborating with other children or adults. See how pipes connect, attach drawer handles to a board, stack up different types of blocks to create a tower, trace house designs or blue prints, play with nuts and bolts, and more! Designed for children age three to fourteen, the exhibit promotes learning while having fun!

"A Day in the Life....As the Betts Family Lived in the Mid-19th Century"

The Betts House was pleased to present its exhibit, A Day in the Life…: Mid 19th
Century Daily Life for the Betts Family, showcasing the tools, contraptions, and tales of daily life for
a Cincinnati family in the mid-1800s. It was open January 16, 2016 from
12:30 til 5 p.m. and on display until May 14, 2016, at 416 Clark Street,
Cincinnati, OH 45203. The exhibit was sponsored by the Robert Reakirt
Foundation, PNC Bank, Trustee.

The Betts House was built
in 1804 by brick maker William Betts as a four-room, two-story brick home in an
era of log and wood homes. He and his wife Phebe had moved to Cincinnati with
their five children, where he bought 111 acres of land in what is now the West
End and parts of Over-the-Rhine. By 1813, they had seven more children
and a fully operational brick making factory William passed away in 1814,
leaving Phebe to raise the children and manage the factory with her older
children.

When the home was turned
over to granddaughter Adeline and her husband in 1863, she began modernizing
the home. The exhibit will showcase how Adeline and the women around her lived
and worked in their Cincinnati homes during the mid-1800s.

The exhibit included:

•Cooking
in the Past: Chopping, slicing and
dicing was accomplished through the use of clever new tools, many of which were
invented after the Civil War. Baking with minimal ingredients, storing meats
and other food items without refrigeration, brewing home beer and eating a
purported healthy meal are all explored in this fun exhibit.

•Lighting
& Heating in a Simple Home: Using the latest technologies, the Betts family most likely had
better lighting and heating than many others, due to higher financial status
from their brickmaking factory. This exhibit will share the devices and
processes that the family most likely used.

•Gardening: The world of family management included much
home grown foods. See what an urban garden grew and fruits, vegetables
and herbs were used for cooking and for medicinal purposes.

•Cleaning:
A woman’s work is never
done especially if she needs to cook for a family of 14, mind children, sew and
mend clothing, sweep floors and beat rugs, grow and preserve vegetables and
fruits, and perform the never ending cleaning and laundry. See the tools used
for laundry including washboards, a hand wash agitator, collar and cuff
crimpers, and clothing irons of many sizes.

•Betts
Family Tree: Managing a brickmaking
factory for 50 years, the Betts family helped to establish the West End.
Learn more about one of Cincinnati’s first families!

In 2015, the Betts House was pleased to share its exhibit, Bricks, Barrel Vaults, & Beer: The Architectural Legacy of Cincinnati Breweries. The exhibit explored brewery architecture in Cincinnati, the impact of technology on the function and construction of breweries, and examine how the buildings functioned within the city. Ideas for the future redevelopment of Cincinnati’s remaining brewery buildings were also presented.

Befitting a city where beer consumption was once 2½ times the national average, Cincinnati has one of the largest collections of pre-Prohibition brewery buildings in the United States. Breweries in Cincinnati were not contained in one physical structure, instead they included numerous facilities such as brewhouses, bottling plants, malt houses, barrel houses, stables, saloons, lagering cellars, residences, and farms. Breweries were connected by tunnels, cut into hillsides, and dug deep below the dense urban fabric of the city. Although early brewery buildings were un-adorned, as the industry increased in size and economic impact, breweries celebrated their function with elaborately decorated buildings.

The exhibit was created in partnership with The Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation and supported, in part, by grants from the Josephine Schell Russell Charitable Trust, PNC Bank, Trustee; the John Hauck Foundation; and the Ohio Humanities Council.Past Summer Exhibit:

Build It! Architecture for Kids was on view at The Betts House May 19 – August 22, 2015. The exhibit, on loan from archKIDecture in Chicago, provides hands-on opportunities for children to explore architecture and construction.

The exhibit consisted of nine modules presenting architectural subjects including roofs, tools, and shapes. Build It! encourages children to interact with each module, either on their own or by collaborating with other children or adults. Designed for children age three to twelve, the exhibit promotes visual literacy with activities on shapes, color, and symmetries.

Children were able to design a tree house, decorate a skyscraper, create a floor plan, and more. Brightly colored, child-sized modules explore math concepts by using tessellations, ornament design, symmetry, scale, proportion, and composition. Children explored familiar geometric shapes to better understand the properties of materials and structures. Through the manipulation of materials, children were empowered to build, draw and create. In addition to the hands-on activities, interpretative panels explained the work of an architect and basic architectural concepts.

In addition to the exhibit, The Betts House hosted periodic special Saturday activities, Family Fun Saturdays. These activities for children and families included hands-on programs on roofing and other trades as well as story times and craft activities.

Traveling Exhibits:The Betts House makes its past exhibits available for loan to museums, historic sites, libraries, community centers, cultural centers, and other venues.
Bricks, Barrel Vaults & Beer: The Architectural Legacy of Cincinnati BreweriesThe Big Shake: How the 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes Rocked the Ohio River Valley (Available for loan)From Tenements to Townhouses: Multi-Family Housing in Cincinnati (Available for loan)Great Cincinnati Families at Home (Available for loan)More Great Cincinnati Families at Home (Available for loan)Endangered Cincinnati: Can These Buildings Be Saved (Available for loan) Lost Cincinnati: Why Buildings Die (Available for loan)Cincinnati's Decorative Iron Age (Available for loan)For more on travelling exhibits, click here.Other Past Exhibits
Build It!* May 19- Aug. 22, 2015
Bricks, Barrel Vaults & Beer: The Architectural Legacy of Cincinnati Breweries+*: Back for Another Round! January 10- May 7, 2015
Build It!* April 12-August 23, 2014Bricks, Barrel Vaults & Beer: The Architectural Legacy of Cincinnati Breweries+*, Oct. 12 - March 27, 2014
ArchiteXploration* August 24- October 3, 2013Build It!*, April 13 - July 27, 2013Forward Into The Past*, January 12 - February 28, 2013Urban Landscapes*, October 13 - November 29, 2012Green Building Signage Project*, September 29 – October 9, 2012Soul of the City*, August 11 - September 22, 2012Cincinnati Vibrant Visions*, June 9 - July 14, 2012The Big Shake: How the 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes Rocked the Ohio River Valley+, September 23, 2011 - May 31, 2012Cincinnati Modernism*, August 13 - September 15, 2011Style & Whimsy - An exhibit of student work from St. Ursula Academy*, July 8 - August 4, 2011The Art of Alan Grizzell: Over the Rhine*, May 7 – June 30, 2011Vanishing Cincinnati*, February 12 – April 23, 2011Picturing a Healthy Girl*, January 29 - February 10, 2011Recent Paintings by Marcia Alscher*, November 27, 2010 – January 6, 2011From Queen City to Porkopolis: Prints of Cincinnati, 1860 – 1890*, October 2 – November 18, 2010From Tenements to Townhouses: Multi-Family Housing in Cincinnati+, April 17 – September 30, 2010HOME WORK: An Exhibit of New Work by VisuaLingual*, February 20 – April 8, 2010Exploring Cincinnati*, October 3 – November 19, 2009More Great Cincinnati Families at Home+, April 25 through September 30, 2009Cincinnati: A Glimpse from the Past*, January 6 – March 31, 2009Great Cincinnati Families at Home+, May 16 through October 31, 2008Endangered Cincinnati+, 2006Lost Cincinnati+, 2005The Changing Cultural Landscape of the West End+, 2004George Washington: Architect*, 2003